MARRIED TO A STRANGER
Episode 3
Jeff had suddenly returned home from work the next day and seemed to be in the worst of moods, he wasn’t his usual cheerful self. He
snapped at poor Jojo when she ran towards him to give him a welcome hug and frightened her further when he stormed upstairs
slamming the door behind him without saying a word to Lara who had paused her cooking
and stepped out of the kitchen to welcome him.
She hurriedly picked a crying Jojo from the
ground and tried to pacify her with kisses as she wondered what was wrong with him. He
had never snapped at Jojo in the past, not even when she did the naughtiest things and for the
first time since they got married he came
back home without acknowledging her presence in the house, not even with the two letter word “hi”. She knew there was something
terribly wrong and part of her was afraid to find out what it was, she had sensed a bad omen
since Jeff left for work that morning but couldn’t explain why.
After checking to make sure she could leave the food she was cooking for a while without it
getting burnt, she prepared a cup of milk and grabbed some cookies from the cabinet for Jojo putting her down in front of the tv to watch cartoons while she snacked happily on them. “That had kept her busy for a while” she thought running up the stairs to meet Jeff.
She always liked to treat Jojo to at least one glass of milk everyday because her late mum always used to tell her how milk was the only
drink that contained all the nutrients needed for children’s growth and always told her stories of how mothers that didn’t give their children milk every day ended up having children with Kwashiorkor. She remembered how she would joke about not wanting her grandkids to have big heads with potbellies and tiny legs. Although her mother had always said this jokingly, she did have a point.
Kwashiorkor is a nutritional disorder caused by a very serious lack of protein in the diet, it
is seen more commonly in children in developing countries where the diet is high in
carbohydrates and low in protein. Children that have kwashiorkor can be seen to have some of the physical characteristics my mum joked about including hair discoloration and dry skin. Of course, all these traits don’t develop overnight, so to avoid such from happening to
your children, you need to ensure that they are getting all the nutrients in the right proportion in their food.
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